The Executive's Role in Agile Change: Sponsor, Learn, Unblock

Most agile transformations are launched by executives, and most of the work then happens far from the executive floor. Teams change how they plan, build and review. Product owners take over day-to-day prioritization. It is tempting to think the leader's job ends with the kickoff.

The evidence points the other way. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) lists sponsorship, and sponsors who understand agile, among its best practices for adoption in its Agile Assessment Guide (GAO-24-105506). DORA, the research program run by Google Cloud, treats transformational leadership as a capability linked to software delivery performance. Both sources also make clear that the executive role is narrower, and more demanding, than "champion the initiative."

This guide sets out what that role looks like in practice: how your influence actually works, what to sponsor, what to learn, what to stop doing and which obstacles only you can remove.

Your influence is real, but indirect

DORA's capability page on transformational leadership reports that teams whose leaders scored in the bottom third on transformational leadership were half as likely to exhibit high software delivery performance, citing the 2017 State of DevOps Report. That is a strong signal that leadership matters.

The same page adds an important caution. Teams whose leaders were in the top 10 percent on transformational leadership were not the very highest performers, and their results varied significantly. DORA's explanation is that "leaders cannot achieve higher performance on their own." In its model, effective leaders affect delivery and organizational performance indirectly, by enabling teams to adopt technical practices and lean product management practices.

DORA measures transformational leadership on five dimensions: vision, inspirational communication, intellectual stimulation, supportive leadership and personal recognition. The practical lesson for an executive is to aim these behaviors at specific capabilities. Vision is most useful when it names measurable goals. Intellectual stimulation is most useful when it is pointed at the obstacles that stopped a team's last improvement attempt.

Sponsor in a way that cascades

GAO's best practice is that sponsorship for agile development cascades throughout the organization. A single enthusiastic executive is not enough, because the life cycle of a system often runs through shared support functions such as certification and accreditation or operational test and evaluation. GAO describes cascading sponsorship as having advocates at many levels who can model new agile values and behavior.

GAO also warns that "Without high-level encouragement, Agile implementation might become a paperwork exercise." It recommends identifying agile champions: people who have the respect of agile adopters and the support of senior leaders, and who can protect early agile programs from being derailed by people who do not understand the new methods or are skeptical of change.

One trap is reaching for policy too soon. GAO notes that putting policies in place too early, before the transition mechanisms are solid, may lead to basic compliance without the culture and mindset change a successful transition needs.

Learn the method before you lead it

GAO's companion best practice is that sponsors understand agile development. Sponsors and champions should be able to tell traditional roles from agile roles, understand agile cadence and processes, and be accountable for results. GAO says sponsors and senior stakeholders may need training or coaching on their new responsibilities, and that organizations should monitor completion of that training.

The guide's case studies show what happens when this is missing. In one, drawn from GAO's 2019 report on Department of Defense space acquisitions (GAO-19-136), GAO found that the Mobile User Objective System program's contractor lacked an agile advocate in the program office. The program office directed its contractor to plan out all work across software builds in order to keep control over requirements, even after the contractor had adopted an agile approach. GAO describes that as similar to a waterfall approach but inefficient in agile.

The Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) framework makes a similar point from the practitioner side. Its adoption guidance says authentic management support starts with self-education, including several days of introductory training and several books. It then asks managers for clear communication and action on three things: the intention to adopt, the promise to make the needed structural changes, and providing education and coaching.

Set the outcomes and let teams own the how

DORA's guide to organizational transformation recommends that leaders and teams agree on measurable outcomes and communicate them widely. At the organizational level, those outcomes should be short, a few sentences at most. Leaders and teams should decide them together, with leaders holding final authority. How to achieve the outcomes should be left to teams. The guide puts it plainly: "Organizations should give teams problems to solve, not tasks to execute."

GAO's guide explains why clarity at the top matters so much. If organizational goals are unclear or do not reflect stakeholder and mission needs, lower-level decisions may drift out of alignment. GAO says this misalignment can erode trust and often results in overbearing governance and bureaucracy, leading to delays.

DORA also offers a simple test of whether your vision has landed: if a leader has defined and communicated it well, everybody in the organization should be able to describe it consistently without having to look it up.

Remove the impediments only executives can remove

Scaled Agile's description of Lean-Agile Leadership states that an organization's managers, executives and other leaders are responsible for the adoption and improvement of Lean-Agile development, and that "Only they have the authority to change and continuously improve the systems that govern how work is performed."

The Scrum@Scale Guide builds this into a structure. Its Executive Action Team is accountable for removing impediments that teams cannot remove themselves, so it must include people who are empowered, politically and financially, to remove them. It also works as a translation layer to the parts of the organization that are not agile, and it keeps its own transparent backlog of transformation work.

You do not need to adopt any particular framework to use the idea. Most of the impediments that stall agile teams sit in systems owned by executives: how money is allocated, how reviews and approvals work, how people are evaluated and rewarded, how vendors are contracted, and how reporting lines are drawn. Keeping a visible list of those blockers, with an executive owner for each, is a concrete way to turn sponsorship into action.

Questions to test your own sponsorship

GAO's guide includes key questions auditors can use to assess sponsorship. Adapted slightly, they make a useful self-check for any leadership team:

1. Who are the sponsors, and do they have enough authority to manage the transition within its goals?
2. Are responsibility and accountability defined for each sponsor and each level of management?
3. Do all sponsors agree on the goals and the definition of success for the transition?
4. Does sponsorship reach the whole life cycle, including certification, accreditation and testing functions?
5. Can sponsors explain how agile values and principles show up in the organization's adapted processes?
6. Do sponsors accept accountability for results?

Every "not yet" marks executive work still to do.

Key takeaways

• DORA's research links transformational leadership to delivery performance, but it works indirectly, by enabling teams to adopt better technical and product practices.
• GAO treats cascading sponsorship and sponsors who understand agile as adoption best practices, and warns that agile without high-level encouragement can become a paperwork exercise.
• Learn the method yourself; GAO says sponsors may need training or coaching, and LeSS asks managers to start with self-education.
• Set short, measurable outcomes with teams, then let teams decide how to reach them.
• Own the systemic impediments, such as funding, approvals, incentives and contracts, that teams cannot change on their own.

Sources

• U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO Agile Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Adoption and Implementation, GAO-24-105506 (November 28, 2023; reissued with revisions December 15, 2023)
• DORA, Capabilities: Transformational leadership
• DORA, How to transform your organization (last updated October 6, 2025)
• The LeSS Company, Three Principles (Adopting LeSS)
• Scaled Agile, Inc., Lean-Agile Leadership
• Jeff Sutherland and Scrum Inc., The Scrum@Scale Guide, Version 2.1 (February 2022)